Just Powers

I am beginning to despair that my family will ever EVER be healthy again.

Six weeks. We have been sick for six weeks. Back at the end of January it was Emma who struggled with a cold and fluid filled ears. Then Will caught the cold which garnered him a double ear infection. Both went on antibiotics and I breathed a sigh of relief that life would soon be back to normal.

Then we had back to back blizzards. Nothing to do with being sick I know, but still, 10 days of fun but wacky and housebound schedules. Once we dug out it seemed pretty clear that Will hadn’t quite kicked the ear infections, so off to the doctor we went again and brought home a second round of antibiotics.

Then we all got a stomach virus. Emma and I were laid up with it first and Mike followed closely behind. Will was the only one spared, but less than a week later he developed a fever completely out of the blue. Then Mike developed a fever and flu-like symptoms and was flat on his back for three days.

The fever stuck with Will for a few days before the cough and runny nose hit. The lingering fever and hacking cough took us back to the doctor for the third time in a month where we found that Will’s lungs were clear, but his ears were still not. The ears, coupled with how long the fever was lasting, prompted the doctor to give us yet another antibiotic, stronger and longer this time.

Then the annoying cough turned into difficulty breathing and asthma-like symptoms for Will. The doctor put him on oral albuterol to open his lungs. Now, four days later, Will is still coughing and still has a fever, and, of course, now Emma has started coughing.

So off the doctor we went again this morning to figure out why Will has had a fever going on 12 days and still can’t seem to breathe. The doctor gave him a nebulizer treatment in the office to get his breathing back to normal and sent us home with our very own, brand new nebulizer with a fishy face on the mask, hoping that the fever will clear up in the next few days if his lungs will “calm down”. Needless to say, Will was not happy about the nebulizer, but the doctor said Emma’s lungs are clear. At least there’s that.

So the saga continues, but we are all exhausted. Illness brings with it not only discomfort, but crankiness, poor(er) sleeping, the inability to get out of the house, the cancellation of normal activities, and general chaos. Did I mention the inability to get out of the house? It was so much easier to be sick as a single person, or even a childfree married couple. You just turn on the tv for a week, eat saltines at every meal and get better. This “family” illness thing is much much more complicated and exhausting, not to mention there are more of us to share the diseases.

And the irony is that as much as I want things to get back to normal and to be able to leave the house, is it not the leaving of the house that is the problem? The only week this month when none of us were sick was the week we were housebound as a result of the blizzards. If we were total hermits it would be a little tough to pick up the germs in the first place.

I will be glad when winter is over.

After Snowpocalypse/Snowmageddon 2010 we built a snow slide out of the mound of snow created by shoveling the driveway.

Emma was a fan.

I am ashamed to admit that I have mostly avoided the coverage of the Haiti earthquake and its aftermath. It was an avoidance I have been conscious of even while I haven’t been sure of the reason behind it.

Tonight, watching the Hope for Haiti Now fundraiser the reason became clear. It’s my kids. As I watched the images from Haiti and heard the stories of loss and families torn apart I realized that I have been avoiding it because I just can’t stand it. I can’t stand the knowledge of the children who have lost their parents, of the parents who have lost their children. I can’t stand the hundreds and thousands of people coping with grief, loss, hunger, fear, pain, and death. I can’t stand the thought of my own family having to face these challenges or of my children finding themselves suddenly scared and alone in the world. It’s incredibly selfish of me, but that is the truth.

Watching the coverage left me sobbing with grief - for the people of Haiti, for its children and for its future. It also left me feeling guilty that I have avoided it until now. If the people of Haiti can stand what is happening to them and can find hope in the rubble, how dare I say I can’t stand simply watching it.

We have contributed to the relief of Haiti. Now I want to wrap my arms around everyone there, especially the children, and hold them and tell them everything is going to be alright. Since I can’t do that I want to call someone and tell them that we can take in some of the children they might be sending to the US soon. Since I can’t do that, I am going to go hug my kids.

In the last week William has started crawling - not just rocking back and forth anymore but full on forward motion - and cruising. He loves our coffee table because it is big and he can cruise around and around it, knocking off everything he finds. Like puzzles. Oh, and remotes. But he doesn’t so much knock those off as eat them and that is another video entirely.

Storm of 2009, originally uploaded by Justpowers.

It’s the biggest storm in her short life. Heck, it’s probably going to end up being the biggest storm of my relatively longish life.

Luckily it was on a Saturday, so there was no pressure to get to work or school. I made it to the grocery store on Thursday so there was still plenty of milk and I was able to stock up.

William doesn’t really know what to make of it and would prefer to be indoors where it is warm and he can chew on things. Emma, on the other hand, just wants to be outside. No matter how frightful the weather.

It occurred to me last week as Emma and I danced around our living room, that she had never seen a real dancer. Rather than let her spend her pre-school years thinking that my spastic gyrations passed as dancing, we decided to let her watch Kathryn’s solo from So You Think You Can Dance. She was completely entranced. (Will - in the background, trying to take a nap - was less so.)

Emma and her friend Kaylee had a play date this week.

Cuteness ensued.

I had this delightful conversation this morning with Emma:

Me: Emma you are so beautiful.
Emma: You are so beautiful too mama.
Me: Wow, that is the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. I love you sweetie.
Emma: I like you too mama.

I love my little girl.

I have just managed to get both kids down for a nap at the same time, giving me a good hour, if I am lucky, to do SOMETHING productive.

Unfortunately I am so exhausted that all I can do is sit here and ruminate on my to-do list, knowing full well that at this point, the minute I get up to start on the list, one of the kids will wake up and that will be that. So why bother?

I have become adept at getting little tasks completed while the kids are awake. Example: putting the boy in the high chair with a toy and giving Emma a puzzle to do gives me just enough time to dump all the trash and take it all out to the curb for trash day. Or this: give Will crawling practice in the pack and play and get Emma excited about her “carons” (crayons to you) and I can actually get the dishes from breakfast done.

The larger tasks, like vacuuming, finishing the cutting in on the paint job in the dining room, or sorting and organizing the mounds of junk in the basement will just have to wait. Some day something miraculous will happen and I will have more than a distracted 30 minutes or hour during a nap to get the house in order.

Right now I have to go get the baby.